Mary Gates Research Scholarship Recipients

Heaven Nina Denham (Environmental Science, BS '23)

Ever since Heaven was young growing up in the Pacific Northwest, she has had a love for nature and science, it was only natural to grow up and become an Environmental Scientist. After graduation, Heaven hopes to continue her education in environmental science to research greenhouse gasses, climate change, and how those issues will affect our communities.

She received the Mary Gates Endowment for her proposal on doing research on Spirit Lake at Mount Saint Helens. She will be joining Dr. Jim Gawel in completing the nutrient budget for Spirit Lake by measuring the nitrogen and phosphorus flux from atmospheric dry deposition. This will lead to a deeper understanding of how lake ecology changes after extreme disturbances, such as after a volcanic eruption, and this will help quantify how much input the atmosphere has on the nutrients in a relatively remote lake.

Hashim Hashi (Biomedical Sciences, BS '22)

Hashim was awarded the Mary Gates Research Scholarship and the Black Opportunity Fund for his research on the obesogenic effects of perchlorate in aquatic invertebrates (Daphnia magna); the faculty advisor is Dr. Alison Gardell. Perchlorate is a known obesogen in fish, however, there is no data on its effects on lipid accumulation in invertebrates. After graduation, Hashim is planning on pursuing a career as a physician assistant.

Kyle Tomyn (Global Studies, BA ’22)

My research (advisor: Dr. Vanessa de Veritch Woodside) focuses on climate refugees from Central America and their prospects for US immigration. It analyzes the reasons behind the lack of immigrants citing climate concerns in the US, and discusses the current and future issues this population is facing. The results of this study indicate that this group is a marginalized one and is facing challenges that traditional migrants are not facing. In addition, they are not known of because climate change is not an accepted motive for asylum processes in the US or anywhere else in the world for that matter. Solutions are explored, and it is decided that first and foremost, this population needs legal recognition. From there, there are actions that the US and Central American governments can take such as special work visas, planting trees, funding social safety nets, and most importantly, cooperation.

Alexandria Rios (Biomedical Sciences, BS ’22)

Alexandria will use the Mary Gates Research Scholarship to continue her research on endocrine disruption in Daphnia magna, an aquatic microcrustacean and established model for ecotoxicology. Specifically, she will study the interactive effects of perchlorate, an environmental contaminant, and hypoxia (low oxygen) on the invertebrate endocrine system. Perchlorate is currently not regulated in our drinking water despite its known endocrine-disrupting effects in vertebrates. Data generated from this research is critical for future policy related to perchlorate regulation, which will ultimately help protect human and environmental health. Following graduation, Alexandria plans to attend medical school with the goal of becoming a physician.

Veronica Ramirez Ramsay (Healthcare Leadership, BA ’21)

Veronica has utilized the Mary Gates Research Scholarship to facilitate research focused on investigating the lack of access to healthcare in populations with chronic health conditions. Supported by faculty advisor Dr. Weichao Yuwen, the global component of the research is comparing a local healthcare system in the U.S. to an international one. In addition, the research focus consists of investigating the laws and policies in Washington State that contribute to the lack of support for individuals and families with chronic conditions and barriers of access to healthcare. Ultimately, suggesting policy changes that enable equal access to healthcare for individuals with chronic conditions. As an aspiring healthcare leader, Veronica’s long-term career goal, is to improve access to healthcare for underserved communities and marginalized populations through research, policy, and advocacy.

Alexa Knight (Biomedical Sciences, BS 22')

Alexa will use the Mary Gates Research Scholarship to fund her research into arsenic resistant bacteria in periphyton communities. The research will continue with characterizing bacteria community organization, composition, and abundance in addition to screening for arsenic resistant genes. This work is supported by Dr. Alaei's lab in collaboration with Dr. Jim Gawel's research team studying arsenic uptake in periphyton communities in nearby lakes. Further characterization of these communities give insights that may lead to bioremediation techniques in the future.

Myai Nguyen (Healthcare Leadership BA ’20)

For this research, Myai is working with Dr. Laing and four other members. The research team addresses healthcare decision-making and system-level support for safety-net patients. This work is part of a larger study of 101 low-income patients who are accessing services in community health centers in Western Washington. Patients completed surveys about their perception of services received and their assessment of ways they think the healthcare system can help them make the best decisions about their healthcare. Myai plans to pursue a Master's of Public Health at the University of Washington Seattle after graduation, with a focus on global health.

Anna Howard (Healthcare Leadership BA ’20)

With the Mary Gates Research Scholarship, Anna will be continuing research on healthcare delivery for marginalized patients in safety-net clinics located in Washington, DC. The aim of this research, guided by Dr. Sharon Lain, is to better understand which needs of safety-net patients are not currently being supported by community health clinics - in an effort to have them be considered and implemented in future healthcare frameworks. Upon graduation, she plans to pursue a Master's of Public Health with a concentration in Epidemiology; she hopes to continue researching and addressing social determinants of health in underserved populations.

Casey Wagner (Premajor BS ’22)

Casey is a sophomore at UW Tacoma, currently looking to dual major in Computer Science and History. He hopes to synthesize these interests into a future career. Currently splitting his time between working on campus at the IT Help Desk and with the Labor Solidarity Project, the titular independent research project under Dr. Michael Honey has made for a busy, but incredibly exciting quarter. Casey's research includes the parsing, annotation, and citation of FBI files related to a book project currently being undertaken by his advisor Dr. Michael Honey. The compilation of a rudimentary guide on proper citation practice in regard to FBI files is also underway. In addition to this, contextual research has been conducted on the period and place surrounding the various files in order to more properly pull pertinent information. The project has been underway for one quarter already, and will continue for at least another two.

Tucker Stewart (Computer Science and Systems BS ’20)

Tucker's research aims to improve forecasting models for anticipating peak volumes using time series decomposition. He is working on his research with Drs. Juhua Hu (Primary) and Anderson Nascimento (Collaboration), in collaboration with Infoblox, a Tacoma-based network control and security company.

Grace McKenney (Environmental Science BS ’19)

The Mary Gates Research Scholarship is an enormous honor, and it feels like a dream that I have actually been awarded it. This scholarship will help support my research in the Becker Lab on the DNA of bivalves (i.e. clams, oysters, and mussels) in Washington State.

For the past few years Becker Lab has been concentrating on a project tasked with counting and visually identifying bivalves in water samples collected around the state of Washington. Now that the visual identifications are complete, my research turns to analyzing the DNA of certain bivalves in order to get a better identification. My research will bring us one step closer to understanding the multitude of bivalve species living in the waters of Washington State.

Katherine Mijal (Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences BA ’19)

Katherine Mijal is planning to enter the UWT K-8 ELL teaching program next year and hopes to become an elementary school teacher. She is currently doing research on intersectional oppression and the US healthcare system, with the aim of reducing the maternal mortality rate of Black women in the United States.

Devin Reich (Computer Science and Systems BS ’20)

Devin will use the Mary Gates Scholarship to fund his research in the privacy-preserving screening of documents. He will contribute to the UWT PPML Lynx framework, an open-source, privacy-preserving machine learning framework, by developing the code to extract features from a text-based document. By doing so, he will create the tools necessary for anyone to be able to screen documents for the existence of keywords without revealing what the document contains or what the words are. Devin will use the SemEval 2019 hate speech data to detect hate speech in a privacy-preserving manner but the code he will create can be used in many other practical applications such as spam, terrorism and depression-detection.

Autumn Diaz (Psychology BA ’18, Global Honors)

Autumn will use the Mary Gates Research Scholarship to assess caregiver ethnic-racial socialization practices across the lifespan and how this socialization relates to current levels of critical consciousness, color-blind racial attitudes, and universality-diversity orientation in UWT students. This research uses data from a social justice issues study conducted by Dr. Rachel Hershberg and her Community Psychology Research Group in which Autumn is a research assistant. Inspiration for her study came from analyses of qualitative data in the first two waves of this study, which showed the need to improve cross-cultural relationships on campus and understand the formation of ideologies pertaining to race and diversity.

Sam Larsen (Psychology BA ’19)

Sam will be using the Mary Gates Research Scholarship to facilitate research into what factors contribute to prompt an individual to engage in social justice actions. This research uses data from a social justice issues study conducted by Dr. Rachel Hershberg and her Community Psychology Research Group, in which Sam holds a lab manager position.

Josiah Pollock (History BA ’18)

The Mary Gates Research Scholarship will take him to the British Columbia Provincial Archives to search for journals from Fort Nisqually. The journals were taken to Victoria in 1865, and misplaced. The information contained in the journals will offer valuable insight into the early development of the first non-native settlement on Puget Sound. As a local historian, who focuses on agricultural history, he is excited to uncover stories of early agriculture here on the shores of Puget Sound.

Brian McQuay (Law & Policy BA ’16)

Brain received a 2016 Mary Gates Scholarship for his research on discrimination against transgender individuals in the workplace (mentor: Dr. Sarah Hampson).